James Franklin responds to Neal Brown's comments about Penn State running up the score
With less than 10 seconds left in regulation and holding a 31-15 lead over West Virginia, Penn State backup quarterback Beau Pribula barreled into the end zone. It was a meaningless touchdown — save for certain bettors — in an otherwise decided game, though it might’ve rankled Mountaineers head coach Neal Brown.
On Tuesday, Penn State head coach James Franklin said running the offense fully with the second-stringers in had nothing to do with running up the score. He’s just never going to shortchange his twos the chance to get meaningful reps in the limited game action they might get in a season.
“Yeah. I guess everybody looks at it differently, right? For me, I believe that my responsibility in those type of situations is to get my twos in the game. But I think once those twos get in the game, then they deserve the right and the chance to play and compete. That’s what I believe. I believe that from the opening kick to the last whistle, you compete and you play,” Franklin said.
He cited the specific situation that Pribula scored in as a good reason to let the backups run the whole offense.
With the clock under 10 seconds remaining, Penn State was inside the West Virginia 10 yard line after driving down the field with the backups in.
The Mountaineers gave a Cover 0 look — no safety help for corners and linebackers playing man coverage, usually while loading the box — and Pribula got to run checks like it was a normal game situation.
Franklin doesn’t want to take away those types of moments from his backups when they’re in the game.
“I think when our two offense was in there against the majority of their ones, they have the chance to go compete. And I think Beau getting in there and being able to run the offense, they went to Cover 0, which it’s hard to run when you go Cover 0. Beau should have the ability to check to our Cover 0 plan and have a chance to execute a play that has a chance to be successful against Cover 0. And then should have a chance to score. So, I’m comfortable with that. I can’t do a whole lot more than that,” Franklin said.
He did add that had it been the starters still in the game running the offense as usual, that’d be a different story.
“Now, if you leave your ones in, that’s a different story. Then you should change how you play. And you take knees and you run in situations that you normally wouldn’t run in. That’s different. But when your twos go in the game, those guys get limited amount of reps. They should have a chance to compete. And I believe that not just from a Penn State perspective, if we’re ever in that situation — I see it the same way. This isn’t me looking at it just from our view. I got a bunch of other things I could say, but I’m just going to leave it at that. That is my philosophy and our philosophy,” Franklin said.
Brown said he didn’t particularly care but scores like that tend to ‘come back around’
After the game, West Virginia head coach Brown discussed Penn State’s controversial decision.
“Who cares? Here’s the thing, I took timeouts,” Brown said. “I wouldn’t have done it but it doesn’t bother me. I just think stuff like that comes around and goes around. At some point, it’ll come back around. When? I don’t know. But, it doesn’t bother me. I’m not upset about it.”